Fortney: ‘Sister by choice’ to Kathy Liknes says shattered family still needs support | Video

They first became pals in junior high school, a friendship that would last for nearly four decades. “She had the most wonderful sense of humour,” says Cherri Hodgins of her best friend and “sister by choice” Kathy Liknes.

“How many times and how many ways can you say that Kathy was a beautiful person?” Hodgins asks me rhetorically on Thursday morning. “She was someone who always saw the beauty in life and helped everyone around her see it too.”

I meet Hodgins and her husband Ken just on the other side of the security gate at the Calgary courthouse. Earlier in the morning, they were the first supporters of the Liknes and O’Brien families to arrive at court, patiently awaiting the CCTV court appearance of Douglas Garland.

Garland is the man charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one charge of second-degree murder in the disappearances of Kathy and Alvin Liknes and their five-year-old grandson Nathan O’Brien. His arrest came last month in the midst of a high-profile search of the acreage where the 54-year-old lived with his elderly parents. Although police have yet to find any bodies, Garland is suspected of killing them sometime after the late evening of June 29, the last time they were seen by friends and family.

Like his other court appearances, Alvin’s son Allen joins the couple and other friends and extended family, as does Nathan’s dad Rod O’Brien. After the Crown prosecutor lets them know that nothing substantial will happen in this appearance, however, the closer family members leave before Garland’s appearance.

Hodgins, though, sticks around. When Garland’s name is announced, she and Ken instantly straighten their backs and listen intently to the lawyers agreeing on another court date, this one Sept. 17.

Outside court, the woman who describes herself as Jennifer O’Brien’s unofficial godmother eyes the wall of TV cameras just on the other side of a glass door. “I want people to know about the trust fund at CIBC,” she explains, clearly hesitant to run the gauntlet of media. “Do you think I should talk to them?”

Her husband Ken assures her she’d be doing a good turn in helping to get the word out. Before bracing herself to go on camera, though, she shares with me some reminiscences about her best friend and how they’ve been coping with the aftermath of such a horrific tragedy.

Kathy, she says, was one of those people everyone needs as a close friend. “She was a dog whisperer,” says Hodgins with a sad smile. “She was incredible with people. She had so much compassion, she was always the first one volunteering to help out.”

She remembers fondly the two of them as young women in their twenties studying at the school now known as Bow Valley College. Her friend, a single mother with a six-week-old daughter, had a drive and optimism that was infectious. “When she met Alvin 35 years ago, it was a whirlwind romance,” she says of the husband with whom she went on to have son Jeff. “Kathy was the maid of honour at my wedding last year,” she says. “Her and Alvin were so happy, he was so good for her and such a gentleman.”

The past six weeks, she says, have been a circling of the wagons, as numerous friends and family take on their individual roles in tragedy triage. “They are devastated, absolutely shattered, every one of them,” she says of the six kids and 12 grandkids from the blended family. “We are still in full disaster mode, trying to get them through this.”

On this day, the soft-spoken woman’s role is that of public voice of the loved ones of Kathy, Alvin and Nathan. Trembling and with her husband Ken holding her arm, she takes the brave walk to the front of the cameras. She gives her message, explaining that the family is still in need of financial help. “No one is working,” she says.

After her brief but stressful moment in the spotlight, Hodgins looks to her husband Ken. “Did I do OK?” she asks him, still trembling. “You did great,” he says as the two embrace.

It’s a job she could never have envisioned back in those happy school days, but Cherri Hodgins takes it on, for the friend she called sister, for the woman whose family needs all the support it can get.

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Fortney: ‘Sister by choice’ to Kathy Liknes says shattered family still needs support | Video